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Large-scale companies may well have users performing different specific roles that use or interface with the Magnolia system that differs in some way from these four defined user roles. For instance, multilingual sites may have translators whose primary purpose is recreating existing content pages in a particular different language, requiring them to perform some of the functions of the Editor/Author or even Publisher/Manager but with specific focus for their unique role in their organization. On the other end of the spectrum, smaller companies may have a single person who performs several of these articulated roles. In order to communicate these user roles and the vocabulary needed to continue with the user-centric development approach, I will discuss these four roles only although most readers can understand that both larger and smaller companies will be able to customize their understanding and interpretation of these roles according to the specific details of their organizations.
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So far, you should have recognized that I have only talked about a user's tasks - the "what" he's doing with the system. But there is definitely more to say about the user of a software system. For example "who" exactly the user is or "when" he performs which task or tasks and "how often" is he performing performs a specific taskstask. These questions don't target the user's tasks but his skills and characteristics.
Especially the The user characteristics we 're are particularly interested in from a usability point of view the viewpoint of developing with usability as the highest goal are:
- Usage frequency:
The usage frequency indicates how often a user uses a software system. We simply distinguish between frequently (e.g. daily or two days a week) and sporadically (that is maybe periods of some there may be a gap of a week or stretches of multiple weeks between system access instances). - Usage intensity:
The usage intensity indicates how intensively extensively a user is using applies the available functionality (tools, applications, customization) within the software. A user uses a software intensively if he uses the majority of features available to perform his tasks. In contrast to those intensive users, a user is a facile user or works with a software only facile facilely if he only uses the basic capabilities of a the software. - Application domain knowledge:
The application Application domain knowlege knowledge describes the users user's experience with the software. A layman might never have never been working worked with a CMS or even doesn't know that such systems exist whereas an expert user knows the application area of a CMS well since he has been in touch with those systems for a long time.have even basic knowledge of the basics of CMS systems in general. An expert user has sufficient experience with CMS systems so that he knows specific application functionality and features well and this experience has been accumulated and added to generally over a long period of time.
These basic user characteristics have Those basic characteristics of a user have a direct impact on the importance certain usability aspects of the software. As you'll see in more detail in the next post there are seven important usability principles, namely suitability for learning, self descriptiveness, error tolerance, conformity with user expectations, suitability for the task, controllability and suitable for individualisationindividualization.
As the table below depicts, the application domain knowledge for instance has a strong impact on the suitability for learning. For a layman user it is important that he get's enough help information at hands to be able to quickly there is enough readily available help information so that he can rapidly and efficiently work with the system. On the other hand for For a user that frequently works with a system, it is more important to allow him to customize that the user interface , e.g. to setup can be readily customized, for instance, easily creating keyboard shortcuts for oftenly used frequently repeated commands. For the Magnolia AdminCentral application both applies equally, the target audience of the Magnolia CMS ranges user needs must be simultaneously considered and accommodated. Magnolia CMS users range from sporadic users to frequent users and from laymen to experts.
With this need for simultaneous and equal usability features in mind, some features benefit more from simplicity while other features benefit more from power and robustness of functionality than simplicity. To facilitate better discussions between developers and decision-makers. However, for some features it is more important to keep them primarily simple, for other features it is more important to design them as powerful as possible. Therefore, in future posts I will point to the users characteristics given above based on the descriptions and terms in this post whenever I explain a new feature or an enhancement for an existing one.
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If we combine the basic characteristics from the last section with the roles of users working with Magnolia which we discussed before we get something discussed earlier, these combine to creat a concept that I refer to as user profiles. For example "an editor with medium application domain knowledge, that uses Magnolia frequently but only basic editing features" describes a user profile. User roles and the basic characteristics for their own are too coarse grained, but are broadly defined while a user profile describes a specific group of users detailed in enough detail to discuss various features from a usability point of view in a meaningful manner.
Following, we We will discuss the most relevant user profiles in more detail in the next section. Additionally I will present a persona for each profile accordingly, building on the descriptions and vocabulary established earlier in this post.A persona is a kind group of descriptive characteristics or portfolio of a concrete but fictitious person that represents a specific profile. Personas are simple to remember and the described characters ("stereotypes") shall should be easy to identify withunderstand. You, as a developer, can print them, pin them on your board and you'll (hopefully) remember them whenever you take any design related decision.
Detailed User Profiles of the Magnolia CMS
Editors *St
First, let's start with the editor role. The majority of users of Magnolia are probably are editors. On the one hand, if you have a big enterprise you'll implement the website at the beginning in a small group of developers and with a few administrators involved. Then you'll hire people to initially create a lot of pages and their content and this content has to be maintained over time. On the other hand, if you have a small business only, you won't have any developers at all and let the website implement some third party but you want - and this is in fact the reason why content management systems exist - create and edit your pages yourself. Thus, a CMS enables basically everyone being an author for his own website. And everyone implies that there might be experienced users but also laymen regarding web software and content management.
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